


dreams

by ellisfifellis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), but everyone notices when he's down, everyone is concerned for shiro, except lance, he may be the dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:13:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7434972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellisfifellis/pseuds/ellisfifellis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t remember a lot of things from before, especially ones close to Kerberos,” he explained. “But I get dreams of memories sometimes. And recently a lot have featured you.”<br/>☆<br/>Shiro’s lost most of his memories from after Kerberos. Unfortunately, he lost some from before it, too — namely ones involving Keith.<br/>Until he starts dreaming about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreams

**Author's Note:**

> hey! i just want to say before you start reading that writing keith is a _pain_ for me so i'm sorry if he's out of character at all! i like to imagine he was more carefree in the garrison, though. anyway, here's the fic!
> 
> (ps a speed ball is one of those little things that boxers hit over and over and over to increase their arm reflexes! this is relevant i promise)

Most of Shiro’s dreams were nightmares. This was an accepted fact of his life, and, as far as he could tell, the rest of his team accepted it as well — he was often caught awake earlier than anyone else, exercising or reading or wandering the halls, shadows under his eyes, and whoever he passed would just nod or touch his arm in an attempt at comforting him. They never talked about it. Shiro didn’t like to. It meant acknowledging the dark side of him; the side that fought other prisoners just to stay alive, the side that had to _hurt_ his own friend just to protect him. Allura had tried discussing it with him, once, and he had completely shut down until Lance burst into the room singing some old Spanish song. 

So a restful dream was rare. Mostly, they were glimpses of life before Kerberos, with his friends in the Garrison or with his family, at home, mixed between Japan and the States. They were normally vague and fuzzy, and when he woke, all he was left with was the faint, bittersweet feeling of nostalgia and the barest memory of familiar faces. Despite what he felt about leaving Earth behind, he knew that these memories would always be better than the nightmares.

It only really started to get strange when he began having wholly good dreams. About Keith.

One morning, he woke, later than he had the whole time he’d been a paladin, with a smile on his face and Keith’s name lingering on his lips. He couldn’t remember the dream, no matter how hard he tried, and the warmth in his chest was unfamiliar. It was… bizarre. Happy dreams were scarce by themselves, and ones that concerned the people he was with  _ now  _ were even more unusual. He tried to put it out of his mind, calling it a fluke, although he did catch himself looking at Keith strangely a few times throughout the day. Hopefully Keith didn’t.

★☆★

It happened again three nights later, and this time, Shiro could remember flashes of it — him, laying on his bed in the Garrison, reading some book about space travel; Keith, walking in and making some snarky comment about it; him moving over so there was room for Keith to lay down as well; and Keith, fidgeting and playing with the hem at neck of Shiro’s shirt. That was all, and every bit of it was fuzzy, but in a strange, glowy way, and it left that warm feeling in his chest again. He swallowed thickly and hoped, once again, that it was nothing particularly peculiar. 

Later, he found himself looking at Keith just as strangely as he had after the previous dream, but more often. Shiro had always prided himself on his ability to keep a calm head — barring the Sendak incident — and so he tried his damnedest to make it seem like nothing was up. As far as he could tell, no one noticed. Well, until Pidge did, of course. They always had been uncannily perceptive.

“What’s up with you today?” they asked, straight after dinner, while everyone was hanging out in one of the common rooms. He glanced away from Keith, who was across the room bickering with Lance as they sat on a sofa together, and turned his attention to Pidge, who was kneeling on the couch next to him so that their heights were even. He almost,  _ almost  _ said ‘nothing’, but the look in their eyes made him stop.

“What was Keith like, in the Garrison?” he said quietly, fingers playing with his shirt collar, mimicking dream-Keith. Pidge eyed him warily.

“You don’t remember? You two spent a lot of time together,” they replied, and to Shiro, it felt right; but even as he grasped for the memories inside his brain, they were just out of reach. He shook his head in answer. “He was always top of the class, in pretty much everything. That was mostly your influence.” They looked at him pointedly, and he gave a small laugh.

“Not surprising, really.”

Pidge shrugged. “No. I didn’t spend much time around him, though, since he spent most of his time with older years. Lance kept going on about him, so that’s why I know.”

“That’s where the rivalry came from?” he asked, and Pidge nodded. “Huh.”

“Since I didn’t know him very well, maybe you should be asking  _ him  _ this,” Pidge said, swinging their legs out from under them to sit normally and facing the others, but still looking up at Shiro from underneath their lashes, meaning sat under the surface of their gaze.

Shiro swallowed.

“Maybe I will,” he murmured, eyes finding Keith once again.

★☆★

Shiro ended up not asking Keith a thing other than what was required of him as a captain. The longer he avoided it, the less the memories at the back of his mind nagged at him, and he rather liked it that way. But the more dreams he had about Keith, the harder it became to ignore them, and ignore the whispers in his brain that maybe there was more to this than just dreams. 

He had finally had enough after the clearest dream he’d had of Keith.

_ “No one to practise with today?” Keith questioned good-naturedly, walking into the nearly empty training room, towel over his shoulder, uniform unzipped to the waist, tied around with the sleeves to keep it from dragging on the ground, familiar black t-shirt on underneath. Shiro saw him from the corner of his eye and smiled, even as he continued to attack the speed ball in front of him. Keith always did have a knack for timing. _

_ “You  _ know  _ I have no one to practise with,” Shiro said, halting the speed ball and turning to face him, grinning. “There’s field trips going on for everyone but pilots, and everyone else wanted to go out. You knew I’d be here instead.” _

_ Keith shrugged. “Guilty as charged. If you don’t want a partner though…” He slowly turned back towards the entrance, but Shiro laughed and jogged a few steps then put his hand on his shoulder, turning him around again. _

_ “Stay, Keith. I’m sure you could use the extra help from a senior officer.” At that, Keith let out an indignant ‘Hey!’ and pushed Shiro back a step by his shoulder, but Shiro just twisted and began walking towards the sparring ring, gesturing for Keith to follow him as he slipped between the ropes and moved into the ring itself. Keith huffed, but followed, glaring and adamantly refusing as Shiro offered a hand to help him up. _

_ As they stood across from each other, Shiro said, in an attempt to goad him, “You have to keep your weight balanced, so place your feet directly in line with your shoulders–” _

_ “Oh, you have to remind yourself of that out loud?” Shiro opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, speechless. He was distantly aware that, had his friends been in the room, at least one if not all of them would have said something along the lines of ‘Oh snap’. Keith grinned at Shiro’s expression. “Come on then, ‘Senior Officer’,” he said, taunting Shiro into taking the first shot. _

_ He did, but it wasn’t anything serious. Just a quick jab at Keith’s shoulder, which he dodged easily, and then he threw a few punches towards Shiro, who moved out of the way, bouncing on his toes. They were both grinning at each other, eyes locked in place as they danced around the ring. It was exhilarating and more fun than it would be with any of his other practice partners. Shiro was pretty sure that Keith was the reason why. They continued trading punches and kicks for a while. _

_ “You’re leaving your left open,” Shiro pointed out, and as Keith tried to fix his mistake, Shiro went in for the unguarded right, swinging a kick to hit — not hard enough to hurt — Keith’s side, getting a flat look from the younger boy in return. _

_ “You going easy on me?” _

_ Shiro shrugged. “Maybe just a little.” _

_ “Don’t,” Keith growled, aiming two punches to Shiro’s face, forcing him to guard it, and then following quickly with a roundhouse kick. But Shiro, despite all of Keith’s natural talent for getting into fights, was still better trained, and he spun out of the way of the kick, costing Keith a part of his balance. Shiro used it to his advantage, moving closer and hooking his leg under the one Keith was balancing most of his weight on, forcing him to fall to the ground. What he was not expecting was Keith yelping, reaching out to grab Shiro’s shirt and him being brought down on top of him. _

_ Luckily, Shiro managed to stick his arms out before he crushed Keith, and that was how he found himself with one knee between Keith’s legs and his face hovering right above Keith’s, the long part of his still-brown hair coming to rest a few inches above Keith's own. He was still grinning and filled with adrenaline from their sparring, so he didn’t notice what was wrong with it until he saw the blush creeping its way across Keith’s cheeks. _

_ Shiro knew he should roll off to the side of him. This… as much as he wanted it, it was against Garrison rules, and he could lose everything he’d worked so hard for — not to mention Keith could lose the bright future he had ahead of him as an ace pilot. He knew it. And yet, instead of that, he stayed where he was. _

_ “Keith…” he murmured, hoping that maybe,  _ maybe  _ Keith had more self-control than he did. _

_ Of course, he didn’t, and he never had. _

_ Keith slipped his eyes shut and rose up onto his elbows, lips meeting Shiro’s halfway. He kissed like he flew; it was a little unsteady at first, a little awkward, but after he got the hang of it, he surged into it and put in his all. It was heady and exhilarating and they both moved backwards so they could sit up and use their hands, Shiro sliding his hands up Keith’s arms to cup his face, one of Keith’s hands playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, the other with the hem of his shirt, dipping under it to– _

Shiro awoke to knocking at his door. He groaned.

“Just a second,” he called, getting up and walking to the bathroom, splashing water onto his face in an attempt to rid it of its flush. He looked at his face in the mirror, glancing at the scar across his nose, the white in his hair; he hadn't had white hair in the dream. It had been brown. And he was sure that if he'd seen himself in the mirror, he wouldn't have had the scar either. Those two features missing was incredibly telling — they were gone in the dreams he _knew_ were memories from before he'd gotten them. Before the Galra ship. 

Which meant it had been real. And Keith was acting like it hadn’t happened.

He put the thought to the back of his mind as he walked to and opened the door to his room, finding Lance standing outside, whistling impatiently. Shiro raised an eyebrow.

“Allura wanted to talk to you about something in the infirmary,” Lance said, then abruptly turned as if to leave — Shiro caught his arm, and watched surprise form on Lance’s features.

“You knew Keith pretty well in the Garrison, right?” he asked, letting go of Lance’s arm and moving into the corridor, closing his door behind him. Lance shrugged.

“I knew  _ about _ him. We didn’t talk much. Why?” He peered at Shiro suspiciously. “If you’re trying to get us to bond more, it’s not gonna work, you know.”

“No, it’s just…” Shiro sighed. “I wanted to know how close he and I were,” he said quietly, and Lance furrowed his brows.

“I mean, there were rumours, but like, it was against the rules, and you’re a rules kinda guy,” Lance replied, shrugging. “So I figured it was nothing. Can I go? Hunk wants me to try some weird new food thing.”

“Yeah, sorry for keeping you away from that,” Shiro said flatly, raising a single eyebrow. “Go ahead.” He watched Lance turn his back and whistle his way away from Shiro’s room, and Shiro walked to the infirmary to talk to Allura, his mind constantly wandering back to the dream– the memory. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it from his mind, but no matter how hard he tried, it kept coming back like a tune he couldn’t remember the words to.

“Ah, Shiro! I asked Lance to get you because I thought since you weren’t sleeping too well, a rest in one of the healing pods could fix you of that strain physically,” Allura said when he entered the room, in one big rush. Shiro smiled at her earnest to help him, but found the situation quite ironic, despite it.

“I was sleeping fine–”  _ Sort of.  _ “–until Lance came to my room.” He kept every bit of malice out of his words. He didn’t blame Allura for anything, and he especially couldn’t since she was just trying to help him. Luckily, she just blushed instead of getting offended.

“I– oh. I am sorry, Shiro! Even more reason to use a pod, I suppose?” she said meekly, although he could still hear a hint of worry in her words.

“As much as I appreciate the offer, I’m fine for now. Might take you up on it at a later date, though.” She seemed a little dubious, so he reassured her. “Really. I’m fine. I appreciate the concern, but I can do just as well with this much sleep.” He watched as she looked at him once more, then sighed, and her shoulders relaxed, showing him that she had been placated. 

“If it becomes too much, you know where to locate me,” she told him, resting a hand on his shoulder as she passed him while leaving. He sighed. Eventually, he managed to motivate himself to move out of the room and towards the hangar where his lion sat. At the very least, it wouldn’t interfere in his life or complicate his feelings any more.

Even through that conversation, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Keith — about Keith’s jaw under his hands, Keith’s lips on his, Keith’s fingers feather-light on the skin of his abdomen. It was crazy. It was  _ driving him _ crazy. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t find Keith attractive, but there’d hadn’t been much time to think about it between everything that had happened, and it would be unprofessional. Or so he had told himself. But every other rule he had known had been broken, so what would it matter if one more was? (Plus, they were in  _ outer space.  _ He was pretty sure normal rules didn’t apply here anyway.)

Now that he knew there had been something between them before Kerberos too, well, that put a whole new spin on his feelings. He’d been so relieved when he’d woken up and seen a friendly face; but had his elation been at a human face, or at Keith’s? He couldn’t tell the difference, now. Everything that had happened felt skewed and off-kilter and–

“Shiro?”

It was Keith. Of course, out of all the people he could run into in the hallway, he ran into Keith. He wasn’t avoiding him on purpose, of course, but he hadn’t been as chatty as normal. Maybe Keith had noticed and was searching for him to ask about it.

“Are you alright? You look sort of lost, ” he said, concerned, raising his hand hesitantly to rest on Shiro’s arm. Shiro noted the careful way Keith watched his face.

“I…” Like with Pidge, Shiro found the honesty in Keith’s gaze hard to combat, and so he ended up doing the thing he hadn’t expected to have to do for a while. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, then beckoned for Keith to follow him into the black hangar. Keith removed his hand and suddenly Shiro’s arm felt cold.

He stood directly in front of the lion when he turned to address Keith. He nearly did it in a military way, but he caught himself, running a hand through his hair and sighing. “What happened between us at the Garrison?” he asked, jumping straight into it. The sound of Keith’s sharp inhale made his heart pound in his chest. There was no going back from this.

“I– you don’t– you don’t know?” Keith whispered incredulously, staring at Shiro.

“I don’t remember a lot of things from before, especially ones close to Kerberos,” he explained. “But I get dreams of memories sometimes. And recently a lot have featured you.” There was no point in skirting around the truth, especially if they were already confronting it. It’d be like showing up to a fight, then telling your enemy you’d be right back and trying to flank them while they can see you. The problem would still hit you at some point. It would be especially unfair since he was the one who had told Keith they need to talk, and him backing out would be bad manners.

“We…” Keith floundered a bit, unsure what to say. “What memories have you seen?”

“A few, mostly blurry ones,” he said. “The clearest was this morning. Everyone was out in town or on a field trip and you came to train with me.” Keith looked like he was considering what he was going to say about it, but before he could say anything in return, Shiro continued, “And we kissed.”

If the conversation wasn’t serious, he might have laughed at the expression on his teammate’s face, but, as it was, it would be mean and inappropriate, so he filed the look away for keeping in his mind. “You remember that? Out of everything, you remember  _ that? _ ” He was… angry? About what? Shiro was fairly sure he hadn’t done anything in particular to offend him, so him being mad was startling.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Shiro ventured, voice quiet and as non-confrontational as he could manage, in an attempt to calm Keith. 

“We– oh,  _ fuck  _ it. We started dating in secret that day. And then later you left to the other side of the solar system, and then you  _ died _ , and then you came back and you don’t remember any of it! I thought maybe you didn’t… maybe you don’t…  _ like  _ me, anymore. I thought you remembered and you were avoiding it.” Keith’s voice seemed smaller and smaller the more he talked. His shoulders drew in and his head hung low, and Shiro resisted the urge to hug him and whisper comforting words in his ear. Now was the time for an actual discussion.

“Keith,” Shiro said, stepping forwards. “I didn’t remember. I still don’t remember all of it. And that’s not my fault.” He watched the corners of Keith’s mouth turn down.

“But I  _ want  _ to remember. When I was in those dreams, I was the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.” He took another step. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry you thought I died. And most of all–” he stepped forwards again, coming to stand nearly toe to toe with Keith.

“I’m sorry that you thought I didn’t care for you any more. Because I do, and it hurts me to think that you’ve been spending this whole time pretending like we were nothing for my benefit.” At that, Keith glanced sharply upwards, eyes meeting Shiro’s, emotions raw and unguarded for the first time since he’d landed on Earth again. “If you still feel that way–”

“Just– just  _ shut up  _ already,” Keith muttered, and then suddenly Keith’s hands were around his neck and pulling him down and Keith’s lips were on his lips and everything felt  _ right  _ and like it had all just clicked into place again. Shiro’s hands found their way to Keith’s hips, and they stayed like that until they had to stop for breath, forehead to forehead. Shiro murmured a little ‘Oh’ and smiled. It just seemed so fixed now, and even as Keith looked up at him, soft lips in an even softer smile, he found that a lot of the fuzzy memories he hadn’t been able to see before came to light, and he was somehow even happier.

“So you were having dreams about me?” Keith murmured, a fake innocent expression on his face. Shiro laughed and moved his head away from Keith’s, but slipped his arm around his waist and came to stand at his side instead.

“Okay,  _ Lance.  _ I see how it is.” At the mention of their teammate, Keith’s whole face scrunched up.

“I am not–” Keith’s lips were stopped with another kiss. At least he had a way to stop the bickering between the two now.

Shiro smiled, and for the first time in a long time, the blossoming warmth in his chest had nothing to do with a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it! this was unbeta-d, so if you spot any mistakes, feel free to tell me. i hope you have a nice day! ~ellis
> 
> come say hi on twitter [here](https://www.twitter.com/ellisfifellis)!


End file.
